This is a record of my journey as a Muslim. I used to be Catholic and belonged to a missionary organisation. After my conversion, I sat on the board of a Muslim converts' organisation and specialised in da'wah programmes, convert management, interfaith issues and apostasy cases. I am an initiate of a Sufi order. As such, the articles and writings tend to cover these areas.
All the Arabic and graphics could not have been done without the help of my wife, Zafirah.

Saturday, 28 July 2012

Three Pieces of Advice

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ
ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The following
story was told by Nuruddeen Lemu.

There was once
a baker in a small village who had a neighbour who owed him some money. One day, the baker decided to ask for his
money back and went to the neighbour’s shop at the market. The neighbour gave excuses which made the
baker very angry and he snarled loudly to the neighbour, “Watch out! I will teach you a lesson!”

When he
reached home, the baker’s wife tried to pacify him when he told her what
happened at the market. Everything went
back to normal. They both retired to bed
for the night. The next morning, when
the baker stepped out of his house, he tripped. Looking down at the steps of his door, the
baker saw the dead body of his neighbour.

The baker panicked
and remembered that he had threatened his neighbour in public the day before. He thought the villagers would definitely
accuse him of murder. Without
hesitation, the baker ran into his room and started packing his bag. His wife asked him what he was doing. He merely said he would be away for a couple
of days. After kissing her and telling
her that he loved her, the baker ran out. He did not stop when he reached the next
village. Neither did he stop at the
village after.

Finally, the
baker reached a village where nobody knew him and he knew no one. He then decided that this is where he would
settle down and went about looking for a job. In this village, there lived a wise old man
named Sulayman who was looking for an assistant. People came to Sulayman for advice on almost
everything. He was acknowledged as the
wisest person around. The baker
approached Sulayman and offered to work for him in exchange for food and
shelter. They both agreed that Sulayman
will pay the baker only when the baker decided to go home.

The baker
stayed with Sulayman and worked for him for a month. Then a year went by. And then ten years. And finally, after a decade of working for Sulayman,
the baker felt that it was time to go home. He missed his wife so much after leaving her
that he no longer cared what the villagers would do to him with regards the
dead neighbour. The baker then
approached Sulayman and told him that he was going home.

As agreed, Sulayman
then gave the baker three large gold coins for his twenty years of service, and
the baker was overjoyed at his fortune. However,
before the baker could leave, Sulayman asked the baker, “In all the twenty
years that you have worked for me, you have seen people come to me and pay for
my advice. Yet not once have I ever
heard you asking for my advice. So,
before you leave, I will give you three pieces of advice.”

Thinking about
it, the baker felt there was no harm in asking Sulayman for advice before he
left, so he asked for the first piece of advice. “Ah, that will cost you a gold
coin,” grinned Sulayman.

The baker was
taken aback, but after some consideration and for old time’s sake, the baker
gave Sulayman a gold coin. “First
advice, stay on the path home,” instructed Sulayman.

“What?” In his mind, the baker was angry. He had spent a gold coin to be told to stay on
the path back home.

Sulayman then
asked the baker if he wanted the second advice, and after a while the baker
thought that he might as well hear what Sulayman had to say. Again Sulayman told him it would cost a gold
coin. Exasperated, the baker gave Sulayman
another gold coin. “The second advice:
leave what doesn’t concern you.”

The baker felt
defeated; “What kind of an advice was that?” he thought.

Sulayman again
asked the baker if he wanted the third advice, and at this point the baker told
himself that Sulayman was merely getting his three gold coins back. The baker resigned himself to leaving without
any fortune, so he gave Sulayman his third gold coin. “The third advice: save your anger for
tomorrow.”

The baker was
dejected. He did not know how these
three pieces of advice given to him would benefit him. Before he left, Sulayman went into the kitchen
and came back with a loaf of flavoured bread.
“Take this flavoured bread and eat it with your family once you reach
home,” smiled Sulayman. And with that,
the baker left the village and walked homewards.

Soon along his
journey the baker came across a group of care-free young men who invited him to
walk together with them. Feeling the
need for companionship, the baker accepted their offer and walked with them,
sharing in their jokes and laughter. The
group then reached a fork in the road, and the young men decided to go left and
stay for the night at an inn just down the road. It was already dark and the baker was inclined
to join the young men for he loved their company, but at that point of time he
then remembered Sulayman’s first advice: “Stay on the path home.”

After thinking
about it, the baker decided to listen to the advice and bade the young men
farewell and he turned right and continued his journey. A few moments later, he heard gunshots and
screams from behind and the baker ran back and a horrible sight greeted him. There, on the road to the inn, the group of
young men had been ambushed and killed by highway robbers. “Wow, Sulayman’s advice saved me!” the baker
was sad to see his companions’ passing but he was glad that he stayed on the
path home. After some prayers, the baker
then continued his journey.

Then the sky
was filled with clouds and thunder roared. Not wanting to get wet, the baker saw a house
in the distance and decided to ask for shelter from the rain and the night. Upon reaching the house, the baker knocked the
door and a huge bear of a man opened. The
baker was feeling uneasy but he politely asked the big man if he could spend
the night on the porch where he would be sheltered from the rain. The big man then motioned him to enter his
house.

Gingerly
entering the house, the baker was ushered to sit at the table in the kitchen. The big man then poured hot soup onto three
plates and set them on the table. The
baker started thinking, “There was only him and the big man in the house. Why are there three plates?” The big man then sat down and told the baker
to eat, and like a scared little mouse, the baker did as he was told.

The big man
knocked twice on the wooden floor and a trap door lifted up. A beautiful woman emerged and took the third
plate of soup from the table and went back down and closed the trap door. The baker was stupefied! “Just what is going on here?” he thought. He was bursting with questions but he
remembered Sulayman’s second advice: “Leave what doesn’t concern you.”

So the baker
and the big man continued eating in silence until the big man asked the baker
what he thought about what he just saw. Suppressing
his natural curiosity, the baker merely answered that it was none of his
business. At this, the big man then took
out a huge ax from behind his seat and placed it on the table, which scared the
baker. “You would have been the fortieth
to taste my ax had you answered differently. I killed the rest before you for saying I was
a monster for treating that woman like an animal. Well, that woman is my wife.” Shocked, the baker just stared at the big man
as he continued his story.

“I found out
that she was having an affair with a young man and they had decided to kill me
by giving me poisoned food. But I gave
the food to my dog and that was how I found out it was poisoned. My dog died. I killed the young man and locked my wife in
that cellar as punishment. Now, do you
think I’m a monster?” narrated the big man.

The baker was
glad that he listened to Sulayman’s second advice. Had he been inquisitive and made his own
assumptions, he would have surely been killed. “The two gold coins I paid Sulayman were
really worth it,” thought the baker. The
baker spent the night in the big man’s house without any incident. The next morning, he set off on his journey
home.

The baker reached
his village and he was surprised to see a lot of changes. He braced himself for whatever was going to
happen and made his way back to his house, but there was a huge celebration
outside. He then saw his wife and he
became teary-eyed. However, he saw she
was kissing a young man. His anger rose
and he took out his knife and wanted to kill his wife and that young man she
was kissing and hugging. After much
effort, the baker remembered Sulayman’s third advice: “Save your anger for
tomorrow.”

“I will go
away now and rest for the night. Tomorrow,
I will come back and then I will kill both of them,” the baker reasoned with
himself. So he went off and slept and
the next morning, he woke up and immediately strode to his house. Just as he was about to enter the gate, an old
man saw him and immediately recognized him. “Oh you’re the baker whom everyone thought was
dead! You disappeared a decade ago. The whole village tried to find you because we
found the person who killed your neighbour and dumped the body on your steps. We wanted to tell you we knew you’re innocent
but no one knew where you were!” the old man excitedly told the baker.

The baker was
stunned. He had been staying away from
my family for ten years for nothing. He
was happy that his name was cleared but he felt sad for the years he was away. Then the old man continued, “Where had you
been? You missed the celebration we had
last night in honour of your son who had passed the national exams and came in
first. Your wife was so proud of him
that she couldn’t stop kissing and hugging him last night!”

The baker went
white with shock and fell to the ground. Sulayman’s third advice prevented him from
killing his wife and his grown son. Crying
uncontrollably, the baker ran into the house and hugged his wife and son, and
like any fairy tale, everyone lived happily ever after. Then, the baker remembered the flavoured bread
that Sulayman had given him and he took it out from his bag and began to cut
the bread. To his astonishment, three
large gold coins rolled out. Sulayman
was not that stingy after all.